


Rotten Hearts

by Apuzzlingprince



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Demon AU, M/M, Semi-Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 05:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10405131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apuzzlingprince/pseuds/Apuzzlingprince
Summary: Fourteen year old Edward Nygma decides to try summoning a demon. Much to his surprise, he succeeds. Demon!Oswald/Edward Nygma.Warning/s: Child abuse from Ed’s parents, some sexual content later on in the story (with adult Ed).





	

At fourteen years old, Edward was quite a precocious child. He had persevered through his mother’s negligence and his father’s abuse and was still as incessantly inquisitive and clever as he had been throughout his adolescence. There were times his parents had managed to convince him he was a cheater, or stupid, or worthless, but no matter how downtrodden he was, he still sought out intellectual stimulation as a refuge; his father didn’t seem able to beat _that_ reflex out of him.

It hadn’t been easy to recognize he wasn’t to blame for the things that happened to him. Every day was a challenge, one of insecurities and fears and loathing for himself and his parents. He hated the way they treated him, like he’d chosen to be born, like he’d planned from conception to make their lives miserable. He knew his mother’s Christian values were the only reason he was alive, and there were times he wished she had relented to his father’s demands for an abortion rather than giving birth to a child she clearly didn’t want.

When it got too much for him, he would indulge in fantasies of escaping his parents, of being taken away by a long forgotten relative, or rescued by child services, or adopted by a good Samaritan. His most common fantasy was to be rescued by the elderly next door neighbour who gave him icy pops in summer, because they were one of the few adults that were kind to him. A few times, when teachers had praised him, he would extend that fantasy to them as well.

Sometimes his fantasies drifted into the realm of fiction and he would imagine himself a wizard whose magic was being deliberately stifled by his caretakers, or the illegitimate child of a spy who would soon be whisked away to follow in his footsteps, or the long lost prince of a kingdom hidden in the depths of a wardrobe.

He knew none of these things – not even the most realistic ones – would happen, of course, but they were a comfort to him when he was lying under his bed sheets and listening to his parents shout at each other over who was to blame for his birth.

All his fantasies aside, he had resigned himself to waiting until he turned eighteen to escape. He was still resigned as he collected candles, incense, and a sharp kitchen knife and set them up around a hastily drawn pentagram. He didn’t actually believe he could summon a demon to rescue him. That would be incredibly juvenile, but the pastor at his local church had spoken of demons and hell and summoning in great detail at Sunday mass and Edward had been intrigued.

For the most part it meant very little to him, as the sermons usually did (he didn’t believe in any higher power), but after cracking open a few books on paganism, trying to summon a demon had seemed like a fun way to spend the rest of his weekend. The kids at his school had played games like this before – bloody Mary and Ouija boards and the like – but they never invited ‘creepy little Edward Nygma’ along to their games.  

Kneeling on his bedroom floor, Edward considered the knife sitting in the middle of his pentagram. To fill the little clay bowl he'd brought along, he was going to need to cut reasonably deep into his palm. He didn’t expect to be able to do something like that quietly, and if he cried out, his mother would come running to tell him off. That wasn’t something he wanted to risk.

He pulled his ratty green jumper over his head and, shivering from the chill in the room, he stuffed the sleeve into his mouth. He then reached for the knife, positioning it over his upturned palm.

He hesitated. The grip on the handle became sweaty despite the frigid weather, and he frowned, casting a glance to his bedroom door.

If he stopped now, there would be plenty of time to clean up before his mother awoke from her late-evening nap… there would be no evidence that any of this had ever happened…

But he’d spent _hours_ gathering everything he’d needed to perform the summoning, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to go to school on Monday and gloat about it? To show off his injury and push photographs in their slack-jawed faces? To tell them he’d had a supernatural experience? His classmates would finally think he was worth talking to. They’d think he was cool. They might even invite him to one of their sleepovers so he could show them exactly how to summon a demon.

None of it was real, of course, but they didn’t know that. They weren’t as smart as he was.

(Never mind that a very, very small part of him wondered if something would happen).

He positioned his hand over the little clay bowl. Taking a deep breath through the musty fabric of his jumper, he applied the knife to his palm and slid it across in one sharp motion.

The pain elicited a whimper. It was unlike anything Edward had ever felt before, not the hot throb of a bruise or the stinging of a split lip. It was a sharp, burning pain that only got worse as blood bloomed to the surface of his skin, sliding down the crevices of his palm and between his fingers, draining into the bowl. It made him want to be sick.

A visceral wave of disorientation washed over him when he finally withdrew. Blinking rapidly to dispel it, he reached for his gauze and pressed one end to his palm, steadily coiling it around his hand and over the wound. If his parents asked how he’d injured himself (which was unlikely; they took very little interest in his well-being), he’d tell them he’d cut his hand while doing the dishes. He did them almost every night, anyway, so it was hardly unbelievable.

After securing the bandage with a safety pin, Edward slowly curled his hand into a loose fist, just enough to determine how much mobility it retained. It hurt enough that he suspected he would have to do a lot of things one-handed this week, so he was pleased he’d had the forethought to injure his left hand and not his right.  

He cradled his injury to his chest as he nudged the bowl into position. The light from the candles danced on the surface of the blood, but it didn’t make it look any lighter. It was incredibly dark. It seemed so much _redder_ when one viewed it in droplets. He was tempted to dip his fingers into it to see if it was still warm, see what it looked like smeared all over his pale skin, but he decided the risk of sullying his clothes was too great.

It was an impressive display, if he did say so himself. A grin growing on his lips, he stood to retrieve the polaroid camera he’d nicked from his father’s bedroom from under his pillow. He was so excited to use it that he took three pictures rather than one, all from different angles, and sat back on the ground with them in his lap. Perfect shots. Maybe he’d scribble his name on the back of one and drop it somewhere in the school to get the kids talking about him. All attention was good attention, as the saying when, especially if that negative attention suggested he was dangerous. It might dissuade the bullies from targeting him.

“Onto the main event,” he murmured, putting the photos and camera aside. He would return it to his father’s room later. It was so scarcely used that he wasn’t terribly worried about either his mother or father noticing it was gone.

After tucking his legs under his thighs, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew the scrap of paper he’d written his spell on. In truth, it was just a bunch of words he’d cobbled together from the fantasy novels he’d read.

The very bottom of the chant read: _Teach my mom and dad a lesson so they treat me better._

If he was going to try summoning a demon, he might as well be honest about _why_ he would do such a thing.

He laid the sheet down on his lap and started to utter the words in a whisper. He didn’t want to speak too loud, least he awaken his mother.

“I call upon the power of the Dark Lordis and I invite the great demons, you may enter and feast upon my offering.”

It was a little eerie to hear himself speak such words in the silence of his room. Evenings in Waterbury were always like this, so quiet that one’s voice seemed to be the only sound in the world.

“I entreat thee to inspire a great demon to manifest before me so that I may accomplish my desired end. This I respectfully and humbly ask of you, Lord Satan, may you deem me worthy.”

There was a breeze coming in from his window. The candlelight flickered.

“Satanatus, Satanatus, Satanatus, Satanatus, Satanatus.”

Flickering, flickering – and then out.

He examined each candle in turn: all of them had been reduced to wisps of smoke.

Strangely, he no longer felt the breeze. He raised his eyes to the window.

It was shut.

Gaze rapt on the window, Edward laughed awkwardly to himself; what was he getting all worked up about? Demons weren’t real. Perhaps the breeze had come from downstairs, from the kitchen. He knew he’d left a window open in there.

“Calm down, Ed. It’s just a game.”

“Oh boy, I hear _that_ an awful lot.”

Edward jerked back around to face the pentagram. Standing upon it was a… it wasn’t a man, that much was clear, but it was humanoid. Its skin was so white as to almost be indistinguishable from the white of bone and there were two great horns atop its head, sharp and curled, not unlike the horns of a ram. It wore a sleek, black suit with tails and carried an umbrella-cane, leaning upon it while examining its host, its pale blue eyes roving up and down Edward’s hunched form.

Edward was too busy gaping at it to say anything.

The demon started to tap its foot impatiently, folding its hands over to top of its umbrella cane. Edward couldn’t help but notice the sharp talons on the ends of its fingers.

“Well? Have you nothing to say? Nothing to request?”

“I- I- I-“

“Child, please hurry it along.”

Edward swallowed, giving his head a shake to disperse his shock. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you actually existed.”

“Is that so?” The demon smiled down at him, all white teeth and pink gums. “For someone who doesn’t believe in demons, you put an awful lot of effort into summoning one. You even cut your own hand. Usually your humans make the mistake of sacrificing an animal, as thought we would want to eat _that_.”

“I- I put a lot of research into _everything_ I do,” he stammered. “If I’d known it would actually work…”

“You wouldn’t have done it? It’s a little too late to start having reservations, I’m afraid.”

The demon stooped down to retrieve the bowl of blood from the floor, giving it a sniff. Its eyes fluttered shut briefly before it brought the rim to its lips and took a sip. The noises it made while it drank were obscene.

“Best meal I’ve had in a long while,” it said, smacking its lips. “Summons are rare these days, especially from someone so young and innocent. Naïve little boys always did taste the best.”

Edward felt his face begin to warm with embarrassment. He must have seemed a right idiot to this creature. “Um, so – so what exactly did you mean when you said it’s a little too late for me to be having reservations? Do I… what do I have to do to get rid of you?” He swallowed. “I don’t mean that as an insult. Don’t take it as an insult.”

“You act as though I’m here to hurt you.” The demon took another sip of his offering and sighed, clearly enjoying itself. “I came here at your request, to fulfil any desires you might have. And from what I can see of your chant, you’ve perfectly legitimate reasons to want my help. That’s more than I can say for most people.”

Edward quickly scrunched up his chant and shoved it into a back pocket. It probably looked like the scribblings of a toddler to something as worldly as a demon.

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, peering at his bedroom door, hoping his mother didn’t decide to burst in without knocking like she usually did. “If there’s a hell, there’s a heaven, right? And I want to go to heaven.”

“Hell…” The demon rolled its eyes, setting the bowl back on the floor and hunching down before Edward, leaning as close as was possible without stepping beyond the pentagram. “You seem awful smart for a fourteen year old, so let me assure you: you have nothing to worry about. I promise you, you are not forfeiting anything by accepting my help.”

“Why would you help me, though?” he asked, more out of curiosity than any desire to accept the help in question. Everything he’d ever been taught about demons gave him good reason to be wary. “Don’t tell me you’re doing it out of the kindness of your heart, because I know it’s not that.”

“Of course it isn’t,” said the demon smoothly. “I don’t even have a heart.” At least it was being honest. “Before you decide to dismiss me, I want you to imagine the things I can give you: freedom, happiness, love. I can make you a millionaire if that’s what you want. I can make your parents love you. I can make your classmates be friends with you.” The demon dragged its tongue over its lips, and Edward noticed the long slither of flesh was forked. “I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Edward worried his bottom lip between his teeth. Those things _did_ sound very alluring, and if there was no heaven, like the demon was suggesting, what did it matter if he indulged while he was alive? There was no point in being a saint if there was no payoff at the end. He’d never thought there was a heaven in the first place, so it didn’t much bother him.

The thought of going to hell, however…

“If I agree, what happens when I die?”

“Nothing bad, I promise.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The demon slowly laid its cane across its lap, folding its hands over its ankles. It was making itself comfortable, Edward realized. It wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. “Edward, up until now you didn’t even know demons existed. You don’t know anything about us: you have only the preconceptions drilled into you by your pastor. Considering I took the time to come here at your behest, I’m due a little more respect than what you’re displaying.”

A pause.

“And,” the demon continued. “I know you’re a curious boy. I have the answer to every question you could possibly ask. Are you really going to pass on the opportunity to be endowed with such knowledge?”

Slowly but surely, the demon was whittling away at his resolve. Friends, family, and all the secrets of the universe? Was his soul even _worth_ that much?

“Sorry,” was the first thing he said, because it was the polite thing to do. “You still haven’t told me what you want in exchange, though.”

“Impatient boy,” said the demon, but there was a fondness in his voice. “In the future, when you are an adult, I’d like to be betrothed to you.”

Edward’s brain shorted. He stared at the demon, uncomprehending. “You want my soul?” he asked weakly.

“I thought a smart boy like yourself would know the definition of ‘betrothed’.”

“I do! I just…”

“It means exactly what you think it means,” said the demon. “I want nothing more and nothing less than your hand in marriage.”

Edward stared for some time more before responding. “I didn’t know marriage was a thing for demons. Doesn’t that imply love? I thought demons couldn’t love.”

“See, there’s another one of those preconceptions you have.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Truth be told, he didn’t really think marriage to a demon would be all that bad. He’d been willing to give up his soul, so he wasn’t about to draw the line at indulging a demon in a relationship. “I guess we can get married,” he said slowly. “As long as nothing weird happens.”

“Weird? Such as?”

Edward blushed to think of those ‘weird’ things of which he was referring. He scratched the nape of his neck, feeling the fine hairs stand on end. “You know… consummating the marriage and stuff.”

The demon laughed. “You’re really too young to be thinking of such things.”

“Are you evading the question?”

“Not at all. I’d just prefer to tackle it when you’re an adult.”

“So you’re saying weird things _will_ happen? Even though you’re a guy?” Well, probably a guy. He couldn’t say for sure seeing as it was an entirely different species.

“I’m saying that you’re trying my patience, Edward. Drop it.”

Reluctantly, he did. “Okay, then what exactly does marriage to a demon entail?”

“It’s not all that different than a marriage between humans,” replied the demon loftily. “’Till love do us part and all that.”

“So, no lifelong torture or anything?”

“I can see that’s a staple in most _human_ marriages,” said the demon. His tone had turned impeccably dry. “But no, there will be no lifelong torture. I’ve no interest in seeing the mundane sufferings of a human being. If I wanted that, I would go elsewhere in the world.”

Edward spent a moment mulling over his decision. It was getting harder to see a downside to accepting the demons proposition. With no hell nor heaven to worry about, nor an afterlife of torture, it almost seemed foolish to decline.

He cast a glance out the window. The sun was going down. His father would lumber inside in a few hours smelling of beer and sweat.

That clinched it.

“Okay, I accept.”

The demon beamed at him. “Stupendous!” He gave a single clap, then reached for the bowl and rapidly consumed what was left inside. Not a drop was wasted. He even went so far as to lick the bottom clean. “Now,” he said, rising to his feet. The cane returned to Oswald’s hand without him needing to pick it up. “State my name five times so I may enter your room.”

“I don’t know your name,” said Edward. He rose to his feet as well. Despite his age, he was no more than an inch or two shorter than the demon. “You never mentioned it.”

“Didn’t I? It’s Oswald. Oswald Cobblepot, but Oswald will suffice for this.”

“Okay.” The enormity of what he was about to do made him feel slightly queasy. He rubbed his good hand up and down his forearms, trying to will away the goosepimples that had risen there.

“Go on,” Oswald encouraged.

“O-Oswald,” he stuttered. Oswald didn’t say anything, so he assumed the stutter didn’t discount it. “Oswald, Oswald, Oswald, Oswald.”

The demons cane moved beyond the pentagram first. Its foot soon followed, and after a bit of tapping around with the toe of his shoe, he seemed assured enough of his safety to step the rest of the way out.

“Not a bad pentagram,” he said as he came to a stop directly in front of Edward, and suddenly he seemed so much taller, bigger, more intimidating. He could have ripped Edward into ribbons and there was nothing Edward could have done about it. “I’ve had a few people draw theirs so incompetently that I ended up being ripped back to my respective realm, and that isn’t an experience I wish to repeat. Very uncomfortable.”

“Sorry.” He wasn’t sure what else he could say to that. “So, um... how do we go about finalizing this?”

Oswald extended one of his taloned hands. “We shake.”

“That’s it? No kiss or anything?”

“You’re a little too young to be doing it that way.”

“Then why would you want to get married to me in the first place?” he asked, accepting the proffered hand with his uninjured one and giving it a loose shake. He didn’t want to squeeze too hard while those talons were so close to his vulnerable skin.

“Full of questions, aren’t you?” Oswald offered him a strangely gentle smile. “This is simply for conveniences sake. As long as we’re engaged, I can roam this realm freely.”

So many odd things had happened this evening that he took the news Oswald would now be able to reside on earth in stride.

Though Edward withdrew his hand, Oswald kept his own suspended in the air. Edward stared at it, wondering if he’d retreated too soon. When he reached for it again, Oswald shook his head and gestured to his bandaged palm.

“I’d like to see that.”

“You’re not going to do anything to it, are you?”

“Of course I’m going to do something to it.” He repeated the gesture with less patience. “You should get used to doing what I ask, seeing as we’re to be wed in the future.”

It didn’t take much for Edward to relent. A glance at those talons and he decided it was in his best interest to do what Oswald asked. He lifted his hand, staring at the wall while Oswald unclipped the safety pin and started to unwrap the gauze. It landed in a pool of fabric at his feet, and while Oswald was poking around his wound, he decided to stare at that instead. Whatever Oswald was going to do to him, he didn’t want to watch.

A particularly sharp prod drew a hiss. “My apologies,” muttered Oswald.

He felt a wet warmth spread over his wound next and for a moment he feared he had started to bleed again. When he jerked back around to check, he found he was quite wrong.

Oswald was licking his wound. _He was licking his wound_.

That couldn’t be sanitary.

If he’d had the mind to do it, he probably would have jerked away. As it was, all the dissent he managed to voice was a strangled noise that could be interpreted as anything from ‘that’s nice, continue’ to ‘that’s the worst thing I’ve ever felt’.

He watched Oswald with wide-eyes until the demon withdrew.

“There you are,” he said, as thought he’d done Edward a great service. “You should be all better now.”

“All better-?” He saw what Oswald meant when he looked down at his hand. There was no wound there, not even a faint scar as evidence of its existence. He dragged a thumb across his palm and it felt completely normal, no pain whatsoever.

“I didn’t know demons could heal things.” It was the sort of ability one associated with angels, not demons.

Oswald wiped a thumb across his pale lips. There was a smudge of red on the corner.

“We can’t, but a demon can do a great deal to a human whose blood they have consumed.”

What an unsettling comment. “Like what?”

“Like healing,” answered Oswald, clearly evading the question.

That was probably an indication Edward didn’t want to know the answer. He didn’t ask again, stepping past Oswald to start retrieving his candles from the floor. He stowed all of them deep beneath his bed, in a corner, where neither of his parents ever looked. They weren’t especially incriminating, but his father was the sort of man who sought opportunities to punish his son, so he wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Do you still need this?” he asked, pointing to the pentagram.

“No, I have you to keep me grounded in this realm now.” He kicked the dirty bandages over with the toe of his dress shoe. Edward started to reach for them, and then paused.

Part of his deal had been his parents’ love. They wouldn’t punish him anymore, especially not for hoarding something as harmless as candles.

But the more he thought about all the awful things his parents had subjected him to over the years, the less he wanted their love. Friends, fortune – that was fine, he could live with those being the product of a negotiation, but a parents’ love was supposed to be unconditional. He shouldn’t have needed to sell himself in order to acquire it.

“May I ask for one last thing? I think it’s something you’ll enjoy.”

Oswald regarded him curiously. “What?”

“I want my parents dead.”

 

* * *

 

A week following the encounter, everything Oswald had promised came to fruition.

He found himself in the prosperous conditions he’d always dreamed of, adopted by a wealthy family that loved him unconditionally and provided him with everything he could possibly want. His peers gravitated to him for his wealth, and occasionally he found a person worth knowing among the rabble. Though he found he was an introvert, preferring to stay alone, it was nice to know there were so many people who desired his company.

By his sixteenth birthday, he was excelling in all his classes, so much so that his teachers had suggested he be enrolled in a prestigious university the following school year. The news media started referring to him as ‘the local genius’.

In reward his parents had wanted to buy him a new car, something better than the modest one he’d picked out the year prior in preparation for driving lessons, but he insisted that a bike would be fine, so they purchased him the most expensive, stylish mountain bike one could own. Though Edward eventually acquired his license, he used the bike more often than not.

For a few months following the deal, Oswald had turned up in Edward’s peripheral vision, a dark figure with bright blue eyes. That stopped after the first month, and then for years he didn’t show up in Edward’s life at all. As time went on, Edward started to forget the demon had ever existed.

At the age of twenty, he finished his bachelor in Forensic and Analytical Science and went on a brief sabbatical to Australia with his parents. They returned just shy of his twenty first birthday, and that was when he walked into his bedroom to find Oswald sitting on his bed, legs crossed, leering at him with a faint smile.

His jaw dropped, and so did his bags, landing upon the carpet with a thud.

“Edward, liebchen, are you alright?” his mother called up the stairs.

He took a deep breath to make sure he wouldn’t stutter out his reply. His mother would know something was wrong if he did that. “Yes, everything is fine!”

“Alright, your father and I will be in the dining room if you need anything!”

“Okay mom!”

He shut his door and pressed his back up against it, trying to maintain some modicum of calm. He’d just about forgotten about Oswald’s existence. For a little while, he’d even managed to convince himself that everything that had happened had just been random good fortune, and the conversation he’d had with Oswald had been a trauma induced dream.

He stared at the demon sitting on his bed. It stared back, unblinking.

After a few beats of silence, it stated in a soft voice, “Hello, Edward.”

“Oswald,” he choked out in response. “You’ve been gone a while. Seven years, in fact.”

“Barely seems like any time at all to a being such as myself.”

“I- I suppose it would be…” He finally pushed off the door and took a few, long strides into his bedroom. “Are you here for any reason in particular?”

“I’m not here to take you away, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Oswald.

Edward diverted his gaze. Privately, he’d hoped Oswald would never come back, that it really all had been a dream. He wondered if Oswald knew.

“I just want to spend some quality time with you,” he continued, standing from the bed. He was shorter than Edward now, eyes level with Edward’s chin, but when he approached Edward seemed to drown within the vast shadow he cast.

“Why?” he asked. “Why not wait until we’re – we’re wed?” It put a bad taste into his mouth to remember what he’d agreed to as a child. He was already betrothed and he’d never so much as kissed a girl. Though he was popular, girls – nor boys – ever showed any interest in him, even when he made it blatant he wanted to pursue a relationship.

“I’m not nearly patient enough.” The creature raised its hands to either side of Edward’s face, cupping his cheeks. “And despite everything I’ve given you, you still work hard, incredibly hard, to forge your own path in life, and I find that admirable. It’s not something I expect humans to do.”

Despite himself, Edward felt faintly flattered. “ _That’s_ why you wanted to see me? Because I _impressed_ you?”

“That is part of it, yes.” Oswald wound a hand into the front of Edward’s shirt and tugged him down, until their lips were level with each other.

Edward swallowed reflexively. “What’s the other part?”

“You’ve grown into a very handsome young man,” said Oswald, hot breath rolling over Edward’s mouth. His lips tingled from the heat. He imagined, briefly, how it would feel to have that mouth on his, if that tongue would sear his throat-

And quickly dismissed the thought, face turning pink.

“Well, thank you,” he said, placing his hands on Oswald’s shoulders in an attempt to withdraw. “But I ought to be going. Dinner will be served soon.”

“I promise not to take up much of your time.” Oswald continued to hold Edward still, and with incredible ease. He was a lot stronger than he looked. “And I know your mother won’t mind if you’re a little late. She’s a lovely woman.”

“Still, I’d rather… I’d rather not….”

“Nonsense,” said Oswald, dragging Edward forward. His next words were spoken against Edward’s lips. “You have time for a kiss, don’t you? Just one kiss.”

Edward’s eyelids fluttered shut on their own accord. “I don’t know,” he whispered, but his face was warming and his heart was thumping and he thought to himself, he really wouldn’t mind this being his first kiss. Not many people, if any, could say their first kiss had been with a demon.

Oswald’s lips descended to his and it was so much better than he had been anticipating. Long and warm, like a summer storm, like a hurricane, dragging him down and prying him open to ravage everything inside. Hot air barrelled into his throat and he whimpered, twisting his fingers into Oswald’s jacket lapels, drawing him closer. It was such an obscene, wanton noise, but he didn’t care; he wanted Oswald’s heat to permeate every part of his body.

Oswald’s hands dragged down his sides, cutting into the material of his dress shirt, piercing flesh. They reached his thighs and curled around his buttocks, giving them a squeeze that was hard enough, shocking enough, to draw a gasp from Edward.

“You’re an exceptional boy,” Oswald whispered into his mouth. “Exceptionally smart, exceptionally imaginative. You have so much potential, and it’s all mine.”

“Yes,” Edward murmured, thoughtlessly.

Oswald lowered his face to his neck, dragging the flat of his tongue over a tendon. It roved over the bob of his throat and to the crevice of his jaw, licking at the throb of his pulse.

Edward started to shake. He was dizzy with arousal.

“I hope you have a happy birthday,” Oswald whispered. His voice was only faintly audible over the blood rushing in Edward’s ears. “You’ve got a fair few long years ahead of you.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, distracted by the sensation of Oswald hot breath on his neck.

“Open your eyes, Edward,” Oswald instructed.

Slowly, he did.

Oswald wasn’t holding him anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even in the room.

Edward glanced around, disorientated, until it came to him that he ought to change his shirt. Osward had ripped into his current one.

Moving on autopilot, he pulled on a paid t-shirt and headed downstairs to join his mother and father for dinner.

His mother gasped upon seeing him. Blonde curls bouncing, she rushed over to Edward and laid her pale fingers upon his throat, a worried expression creasing her forehead. “Edward, you’re all red! Tell mama what happened!”

“What do you mean I’m all red?”

She retrieved a metal carrying tray from the table, tipped off the contents, and held it up to Edward. In his reflection, he could see puckered pink marks on his skin, running up the length of his neck and ending at the crevice of his jaw. It was as though he’d been burned.

“Oh…” He gingerly touched the marks. They didn’t hurt. Neither did his mouth, though he supposed it would be pink as well. “Sorry for worrying you, mother. I must have scratched myself a little hard.”

“Scratched yourself? Why were you scratching yourself?”

“You’re fussing too much, Gertrude dear,” his father spoke up from the kitchen table. “Edward’s isn’t a child anymore. He can take care of himself.”

“Father’s right,” said Edward, but he still stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his mother’s cheek. “Thank you for worrying about me, though,” he added in a whisper, passing her to join his father at the kitchen table.

It wasn’t until he was half-way through eating a plate full of chicken and potato salad that it really dawned on him what had just happened. He excused himself and rushed upstairs to sit in his room, against his door, and panic.

 

* * *

 

Nothing changed. His mother and father still loved and supported him, he was still a qualified forensic scientist, he was still popular, and he still had a bright future ahead of him. The only difference was that he now knew Oswald had, in fact, been real, which wasn’t something he had completely dissuaded himself from believing in the first place.

Insomnia became an issue shortly after their encounter. Edward would spend hours lying awake come night-time, wondering where Oswald was and if he would be coming for him soon. Sometimes he would come gasping into consciousness in the early hours of the morning with afterimages of a hot mouth ghosting up his neck and the sensation of fingertips dragging up his sides and an impossible heat in his throat. The dreams were arousing and bewildering, but they generally didn’t last, dissipating as he turned over in his sweat-sodden sheets and went back to sleep.

To take his mind off of Oswald, Edward sought employment. Most places thought him too young and inexperienced to employ, but he did manage to acquire an interview with a nearby police station. They were offering a position for a junior forensic scientist with the stipulation there would be a trial period. He acquired the trial period. He then, after two weeks of hard work, acquired the position permanently.

Months passed. Oswald never came for him and nor did he visit. Edward didn’t even see him in his peripheral vision as he had in his youth.

After a while he stopped thinking of Oswald altogether, stopped wondering when he would whisk him away for their marriage. However, this time he didn’t delude himself into thinking Oswald was a product of his imagination.

Within three years, he hadn’t made a single friend at his workplace, perhaps because everyone working there was reasonably prosperous and couldn’t be persuaded to like him through wealth, but that was alright; he still communicated with his old friends on occasion and his parents were always there if he needed someone to talk to. He still lived at home, so it wasn’t as thought he was without company.

Of course, by twenty five, he had started to desire some independence. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his parents – they were the best thing that had ever happened to him, but his mother was rather oppressive and his father often hinted that he would like Edward to find a nice girl for himself and have her pop out some grandkids. He couldn’t very well do that if he had to bring all his potential partners to his parents’ house… not that he _had_ any potential partners. There weren’t many women at his workplace and nor was he interested in any of them.

So he requested a transfer to another station. One deeper in the city, where there would be more action. The captain obliged his request and sent him off with a shake of his hand and a smile.

As the commute to work would be too far for him to remain at home, his mother had the exact opposite response.

“I can’t believe you would leave knowing your poor momma will worry about you.” She cupped his face in her hands and looked up at him with watering blue eyes. “My precious boy, what if something happens to you? You won’t have your momma there to help you.”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her, letting her place a wet kiss on his face. Her lipstick would be smudged all over his cheek now. “They give us plenty of training to prepare us for potential danger.”

“But you won’t have _me_ there,” she said, sniffing and stroking a hand through his neatly combed hair.

“I’ll phone every other night,” he promised her. “And I’ll come down to see you and father on my days off.”

“You needn’t worry, dear,” said Elijah, stepping up to clap a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “I’m sure Edward can handle himself. He’s quite a bit brighter than I could ever hope to be!”

“It’s a mother’s duty to worry,” huffed Gertrud, withdrawing to place her hands on her hips. “I remember when you were just a lad, and oh, they treated you so badly, that wicked woman and man you used to live with. I never want to see you hurt in that manner again.”

Edward couldn’t help but smile. She was acting like he’d just been conscripted for war. “I don’t work on field, mother, you really don’t have to worry. I’ll be spending most of my time indoors.”

“Good,” she said. “But if you have any troubles, you call your mother.”

“Or your father,” piqued up Elijah. “Granted, your mother always has been better at dealing with bullies than me.”

Edward grabbed them both by the hand and pulled them in for a quick hug. “Don’t be silly. This is a _workplace_ , there aren’t going to be any bullies.”

He was wrong.

His initial introduction into the workforce was fine. People were polite. They tolerated him and his oddities, they even indulged his love for riddles.

And then their patience began to wear thin, and while most of his co-workers weren’t overtly mean to him, preferring to ignore him rather than engage long enough to insult him, that wasn’t the case for Arnold Flass and his associates. On more than one occasion he’d come upon them discussing how ‘odd’ he was, how ‘creepy’, and he had skittered away each time out of embarrassment. They rarely said anything to his face, but they didn’t make much of an effort to hide how they felt about him either.

It didn’t help that he and Arnold were both enamoured with the same woman.

Kristen Kringle was perfect in every way. She was beautiful, intelligent, clever and kind, and Edward had never wanted to be with a woman more than he wanted to be with her. The only problem was, he didn’t seem to be her type.

She had a thing for brutish men. She liked that they were strong, that they had a firm hand, and that was the antithesis of what Edward was. He had little muscle to speak of and even less boldness. He couldn’t even be upfront about his feelings; he always stuttered and stumbled, had to resort to communicating through poems and riddles.

Arnold Flass, on the other hand, fell into the category of ‘brutish men’. In fact, Edward would go so far as to call him a beast. A stupid, mindless beast who had no business being with someone as intellectually gifted as Miss Kingle. When he found out Flass had been convicted of murder, it came as no surprise to Edward at all.

But it frightened him to think of Kristen falling in with more men like him. He could have hurt her, killed her, taken him away from him, and so he gathered up the courage to stammer out his concerns to a bewildered Kristen. To his great relief, Kristen accepted them with a smile and a gentle touch to his forearm.

He’d thought that was an indication of interest. But he was wrong, as he generally was about romance.

He waited a few weeks before buying himself a bouquet of flowers and asking her out on a date, and that was when he met Tom Dougherty, her new boyfriend. Another one of those horrid, brutish men she so liked. He'd hoped the flowers would have a better reception than the cupcake and poem he'd given her a few months prior, but he ended up going home feeling more dejected than ever.

Every time he called home, his mother told him to be persistent. “If your father hadn’t stood up to his parents, he and I never would have been together! Sometimes love has these little hurdles. You must persevere.”

He wasn’t so sure that applied in this case. She had already given her love to somebody else – several somebody else’s, in fact, and he wasn’t likely to ever be counted among them. She just didn’t like him that way.

Maybe Oswald _had_ rendered him incapable of having another partner. This wasn’t the first time he had wondered, but it was more relevant now than ever. Perhaps if he called on him…

He dismissed that idea before it could fully conceive. He didn’t think the demon would appreciate his conquest calling on him solely to ask Edward to let him to get together with the competition.

He contented himself with the thought of being her friend. Not being in a romantic relationship with her didn’t mean he had to stop doing nice things for her, and so he prepared a watermelon to take down to the filing room.

That was when he noticed the bruises.

 

* * *

 

“Oh dear.”

Blood smelt different on a fresh body. There were fewer intermingling scents. It was thicker, stronger, more pungent, and it made Edward want to be sick in a way that no other blood ever had.

“Oh dear,” Edward whispered again. They were the only words he seemed able to choke out. “Oh dear.”

Tom Dougherty was still dragging rattling breaths into his dying body, chest heaving and pectorals straining against his jacket. His eyes were wide with the horror of knowing ones imminent death.

Edward swallowed hard and his legs threatened to give out on him, quaking under his weight as he stumbled further out into the street. The knife handle had turned skin-warm against his palm. He couldn’t bring himself to release it, even though he knew he should. It would be incredibly incriminating for him to be discovered at the scene of the murder with the murder weapon.

Tom managed to squeeze out one last, gasping breath before his chest fell still. The streetlights gave his vacant eyes a glassy quality.

Edward turned and grabbed trunk of his car and used it to keep himself upright while he vomited. That night’s dinner burned up his throat and splattered the asphalt, and distantly he heard his mind tell him that this was evidence, he was leaving evidence at the scene of the crime, he would be caught. They would swab his vomit and the blood upon the asphalt and he would go to prison.

He vomited again, retching so hard that it evolved into a coughing fit.

The flat expanse of a palm settled between his shoulder blades, stroking small, comforting circles into the fabric, and he jerked upright so suddenly that he gave himself whiplash, neck aching as he turned to brandish the knife at whoever it was that had come upon him.

“Oh Edward,” said Oswald, shaking his head. “You’ve made an awful mistake, haven’t you?”

“Oswald.” His mouth tasted of bile, even more so now that Oswald was here. “Is this – is this it? Are you taking me now?”

Oswald grabbed his wrist between a thumb and forefinger and eased the knife away. “Goodness, no,” he said gently. “I’m just here to help you.”

“Help me?” Edward didn’t quite believe that, and nor could he bring himself to; Oswald was too convenient a scapegoat. “But you did this to me,” he said, retreating a step and waving a finger at Oswald in accusation. “You- you drove women away from me – drove her away from me – so you could have me for yourself. You did this to me. I wouldn’t have killed him if-”

“I’m afraid this was all you, my friend,” replied Oswald. He spoke again before Edward could protest. “I don’t have to be your enemy, Edward. Having a demon as a friend has its benefits. Clean up, for example.”

“But – but you did do this,” he insisted, his voice steadily losing conviction. “Why else would no one want me?”

Oswald exhaled heavily. None too gently, he plucked the knife out of Edward’s fingers and slid it into a breast pocket, unconcerned with the smudge of red it left on his fine polyester suit. “You’re trying my patience.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“The answer is no, Edward, I didn’t do anything to drive women away from you. The only thing that prevented you from successfully courting Kristen were your own courting attempts.”

Edward’s jaw tightened. “Are you trying to tell me _I_ drove her away?”

“I’m telling you, if you want her, that you need to try _harder_. Your attempts have been pitiful thus far.” Oswald turned his back on him, and Edward was gripped with the urge to shout at Oswald, because _how dare he_ suggest Edward hadn’t tried _everything_ to get Kristen to like him, how dare he join the chorus of bullies who thought him _creepy_ and _weird_. He couldn’t even begin to understand the machinations of love. He was a demon, for god’s sake.

But he remained silent, because Edward was nothing if not a pragmatic individual and he wasn’t about to pass on the opportunity to get away with this scot-free.

Oswald dragged Tom easily into the back of Edward’s car, then dumped himself into the passenger seat. After a moment’s hesitation, Edward joined him, sliding behind the wheel and turning the ignition.

“You know, Edward,” the demon said, casting him a toothy smile. “There’s something rotten in you. You’re going to learn to embrace it one of these days.”

 

* * *

 

Disposal of the body went without incident. Save for, perhaps, the brief interaction he had with Miss Kringle, but she didn’t suspect anything untoward despite spotting the remnant of Officer Dougherty in the sink.

Before the end of the day, all that remained of him were his bones, white and pristine in Edward’s gloved hands. He pushed them into a sack and proceeded to smash them with a hammer. He pummeled them until they were a fine dust, easily disposed of, and then washed that down the sink as well.

Oswald was right. There was something rotten in him.

Perhaps that was why he managed to convince himself to ask Miss Kringle on a date a scant week following the murder, and only two days after his forged letter. To his utter surprise, she said yes.

After everything that had happened, he hadn’t expected a relationship come of his last desperate attempt to be with Kristen. He’d honestly thought Oswald would prevent his success. Now that he knew that wasn’t the case, he was quite ashamed of his earlier accusations and he was glad it was likely to be years before they saw each other again. He didn’t relish the thought of looking Oswald in the eye while knowing everything the man had said was true.

The downward spiral he’d been on ever since transferring to the GCPD finally came to a stop. Having a partner entered him into a world he’d been denied throughout his life, one of friends and familial visits and double dates. His mother, despite her initial reservations (“I’m pleased she finally came around, but she spent _months_ rejecting you, Edward, you deserve better!”), absolutely loved Kristen, and his father tended to like everyone he met. He couldn’t think of a time he’d ever been happier.

During their second trip to his parents’ mansion, his mother pulled him aside and into the kitchen, sliding two little silver cuff links into his hand.

“These are what you father wore at our wedding,” she told him in hushed tones. “He looked so handsome with them, and I’m sure you will too.”

“Mother,” he began, face colouring. “It’s a little early to be thinking of marriage. We’ve only been together a month.”

“It’s never too early to think about spending the rest of your life with the one you love,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew your father was the one the moment I laid eyes on him. I often envisioned our wedding, and the real thing was more beautiful than anything I ever came up with.” She gently closed his fingers over the cuff links.

“What about you?” he asked. “Do you have a family veil? A broach? Should the time ever come that me and Kristen... tie the knot, I would like to be able to honour your family as well.” Come to think of it, her family had never come up in conversation. He didn’t even know what her maiden name was.

Gertrud gave a solemn shake of her head. “The Kapelput’s were a very modest family, I’m afraid. They weren’t able to leave me anything to pass down.”

Kapelput… Kapelput… he was sure he’d heard that name before, but he couldn’t say place where.

He let the cuff links drop into his coat pocket.

“The veil from your old wedding dress, perhaps?” he suggested. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“That would be lovely,” said his mother, flushed with joy. She leaned up to press a messy kiss to his cheek, which seemed to be the only type of kiss she was capable off.

He resolved, then, to have Kristen be his wife. He was sure Oswald wouldn’t like it, but if Oswald hadn’t been open to polygamy he would have told Edward as much, surely.

 

* * *

 

Being in love, and having his love reciprocated, improved every aspect of Edward’s life. He didn’t care that he didn’t have many, if any friends to speak of; he didn’t care that he was generally disliked; he didn’t care that most people considered him a nuisance. Kristen didn’t mind his eccentricities, she even liked a few of them, and that was enough for him. Just having someone accept him for what he was significantly increased his quality of life.

His thoughts frequently drifted to the cuff links Gertrude had given him. The longer he and Kristen maintained a relationship, the more likely it felt that he would one day wear them down an isle. One day being married to the women he was so enamoured with was such a giddy though that his co-workers frequently had to snap him out of love induced reveries, and it had gotten so bad that Harvey had taken to snapping his fingers in front of Edward’s face every time they had something to discuss.

He wasn’t going to ask Kristen to marry him anytime soon, though. He had enough social skills to know it was too early. Maybe after a year… two years… however long it took, he was willing to wait. He didn’t want to pressure Kristen into anything; he didn’t want to be like her former boyfriends.

All the suffering of the past year had been worth it, just for this.

“Listen to me. I am not the man that you think I am. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“I had to kill him because he hit you. Do you understand that? I did it for you.”

“I promise I will never do anything to hurt you ever again. I love you. I've loved you since the first moment that I saw you.”

All good things come to an end, as the saying goes.

She had gone lax in his grip, her mouth slack and big green eyes staring vacantly through him. There was a sound in his ears, like the grind of cogs in a clock, as she slid slowly down his door and landed in a graceful heap upon his floor. Her chestnut hair framed her head and his overburdened mind whispered to him that it looked like a halo.

“Kristen?”

He lowered himself to the floor before her, raising his clammy hands to her neck, feeling for her pulse.

There was a very gentle thud against his fingers, followed by another one. And then nothing.

“Kristen? No, no, no, no.”

He slid his arms around her, pulled her still-warm body into his chest and buried his face into her hair. She still smelt of the peach shampoo he had brought back from the mansion. Slowly, he rocked her back and forth in his arms, whispering under his breath. _No no no no_. It became his mantra. _No no no no_.

He’d killed her. He’d murdered her while telling her he’d never hurt her, that he loved her. The last words she’d ever heard were a lie.

The grief and shame were unbearable. He couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t stand what he had done. Everything good about him, about his life, was being sullied and deformed and _he_ was the one doing it, twisting himself into something dark and rotten and unrecognizable.

He was rotten. He was a monster. They were both right.

“Shh.” Warm hands pried him away from the corpse of his beloved. He was too weak to protest.

His mind spun as he was lifted into the air and deposited upon the bed. “Oh, my poor little Edward,” whispered Oswald, stroking his face with a gloved hand. It pained him to be the recipient of such affection, and he twisted away from it, buried his face in one of his pillows. The horrible emptiness inside of him was growing ever vaster. “Shh, it’s alright,” whispered Oswald. “Don’t hide from me.”

He felt Oswald crawl onto the bed, on top of him, warm fingers sliding over his shoulders in a placating gesture.

“Everything’s going to be okay, my friend.”

He ought to have believed that by now, but he didn’t. He couldn’t conceive of how he would feel okay ever again.

“No it’s not,” he croaked. “I ruined everything.”

“You do have a habit of doing that,” mused Oswald. “But, no matter. Humans are prone to such things.”

Edward inhaled softly, shakily, remaining silent while Oswald shifted so they were side by side.

“How about I take your mind off things?”

He didn’t know what Oswald meant by that. He didn’t particularly care, either, until a warm palm slid down the flat expanse of his belly and delved beneath the waistband of his boxers. A gasp caught in his throat.

“You never needed that woman, you know,” continued Oswald, pushing his boxers over the bony jut of his hips. “You’ll be better off without her.”

“I loved her,” he whispered hoarsely. The smooth pad of a gloved thumb grazed the inside of his thigh, impeccably warm.

“She didn’t love you. She wouldn’t have said all those awful things if she did.”

“Mhm.” Any attempt at a reply was silenced by Oswald coiling a fist around his flaccid cock. He threw his forearms over his face, blinking away tears.

His mind felt like something thin and truculent, like wet paper tearing at the seams.

“But I love you,” murmured Oswald. The slick slide of leather on skin wrenched little, strangled noises out of him. “I’ve loved you for a very long time.”

His head buzzed, his vision blurred. Sweat and tears clung to his skin and he was sure he tasted of salt when Oswald leaned down to lick a stripe up the edge of a collarbone.

“Miss Kringle couldn’t say the same, could she? I’m fairly certain she only _settled_ for you.”

Edward realized reluctantly, wretchedly, that Oswald was right. His bottom lip trembled.

“Don’t cry, Edward. Shh. Don’t cry.” The ministrations increased in tempo. Against his violation, his toes curled and his fingers tore into his bed sheets. His neck began to prickle with warmth. Through the gap in his arms, he could see Oswald smiling down at him. “If it’s any consolation, we’re both love-struck fools. We’ve both done silly things in the name of it.”

His mind was in disarray, distracting in its foreign chaos. He wasn’t quite absorbing Oswald’s words.

“I thought you might like her, Gertrud Kapelput. We aren’t supposed to introduce humans to our descendants, but, well… I though it a nice personal touch.”

Heavy breaths came barrelling out of him. He was only vaguely aware he was pleading for Oswald to move faster, stroke harder.

Oswald obliged.

“So technically, you were a Cobblepot even before marriage.”

One more squeeze and he was done, lost to the crashing throes of orgasm, coming with a shout into the palm of Oswald’s leader glove. He fell lax upon his mattress.

Releasing his cock, Oswald tucked it back between his legs, tugging the boxers back into place.

Edward hadn’t the strength to move as Oswald lowered himself beside Edward and pulled Edward into his chest. All the energy had been wrested out of him by the orgasm. He let his eyelids flutter shut, let the pleasant thrum of satiation drag through his veins, heavy and viscous. There was still moisture on his cheeks but he didn’t bother to wipe it away; he didn’t have the presence of mind to be embarrassed that Oswald had seen him cry.

He felt Oswald tuck his face against the back of his neck, breath hot on his skin. “Everything will be alright, Edward. I’ll make sure of it.”

In his post-orgasm daze, Edward believed him.

 

* * *

 

Everything was not alright.

Death arrived for him, as it did for so many others, in the form of a spray of bullets. The only real peculiarity was that these bullets were discharged from guns held by his co-workers.

It was a quick affair. He fell across the sidewalk in a sprawl of limbs, struck his head upon the cement and saw stars. Red steadily spread across the green of his dress shirt, a red so dark that it might as well have been black. It gushed out of him in some places, seeped in others. It spread across the sidewalk and intermingled with the filth in the gutter.

There was no dignity in this death.

“What kind of idiot leaves the body of their murder victim in their office, anyway?” said one man.

“Poor Kristen. I always knew this guy was a freak,” said another.

A shadow fell over him. Too-white teeth flashed in the light.

Death looks just like-

“Oh dear, this is quite a predicament you’re in,” murmured Oswald. He hunched down beside him, cradling his head in a palm and pressing a searing kiss to his lips.

Edward wanted to yell, he wanted to cry, he wanted to hurt Oswald, grab his throat, hold him down, strangle _him_. He wanted to see him die the way Edward was dying, humiliated and in pain. He wanted – he wanted –

Oswald gently lifted one of his slack hands, sliding a brilliant golden band onto the ring finger. Its slight weight felt more confining than any cage.

He wanted to scream.

“You really shouldn’t trust a demon, my dear.”


End file.
